I Would Take any Job, but…: Biographies of Low-Educated Women at the Intersection of Class and Gender. The paper analyses the biographies of women at the intersection of class and gender in the Czech Republic. With the transition towards a market-based economy and a decrease in the symbolic capital of workers in the blue-collar and service fields, and in the context of a familialist social policy and a labour market that discourages a combination of paid employment and care responsibilities, women with low education find themselves in the secondary labour market and exposed to gender discrimination. We illustrate how an intersectional approach (Brah – Phoenix 2004) can be used in sociology to analyze the ways in which class, gender and other social categories, such as care responsibility, interact and mutually constitute each other in the lives of women.
Sociológia 2012, Vol. 44 (No. 6: 651-677)

Is Current Czech Society a Social Class-Based Society? The Validity of EGP and ESeC Class Schemes. The subject of this article is the EGP and ESeC class schemes and their validity for Czech society. The basic question is to what extent these two schemes identify differences in occupational conditions in Czech society. In the first part of the article, the author presents EGP and ESeC schemes, focuses on their theoretical grounds, and looks at the criteria that define social classes within these frameworks. In the second part of the article, the author tests whether these two class schemes really measure what they are supposed to – the criterion validity of EGP and ESeC is tested. After that, the author examines how much the two class schemes predict other social variables on the basis of theoretical expectations – the construct validity of EGP and ESeC is tested. Finally the author compares these two class schemes and discusses which of them is a more appropriate explanatory instrument of occupational inequalities, and the consequent differences in life outcomes in current Czech society.
Sociológia 2012, Vol. 44 (No. 6: 678-703)

Resident’s perception of festivals – a case study of Łódź. Festivals are presently among the fastest growing types of events in the world. Recent years have brought many scientific studies, which include an analysis of the economic and social functions of festivals, as well as their organization and management. Particularly intensive research is carried out in the field of social interactions. The scope of study includes the analysis of the local community’s perception of festivals. The authors of this article decided to contribute to this stream of research and analyze the perception of the festivals organized in Łódź – one of the largest Polish cities. For this purpose, the authors conducted over 1200 interviews with Łódź inhabitants in order to examine how they perceive these events. The main objects of the study were the inhabitants’ evaluation of festivals and their importance for them, the assessment of festival organization, the impact of the events on the image of the city and the residents’ participation in festivals.
Sociológia 2012, Vol. 44 (No. 6: 704-728)